Perun LC | Let There Be (WML) Lumens

Raven Concealment Systems (RCS) has released the WML-compatible version of their OWB (Outside the WaistBand) Perunholster. It’s called the Perun LC (Light Compatible) and, as I’ll explain a little further on, it’s the perfect holster for anyone who has their arm bitten off by a shark.

But wait. Before we get to discussin’ it in more detail (and it pains me that this disclaimer is necessary), let me clarify: the Perun LC will only work properly if there is a light attached to the weapon. It will also function best if used in conjunction with the appropriate breed of pistol…so if you drop something else in there, good luck to ya.

SPOTLIGHT on: the Perun LC Holster

There have been a few expressions of surprise that RCS released a strong side OWB holster, which is understandable, describing strong side OWB carry as “old school.” Raven Concealment did play a dominant role in mainstreaming AIWB carry, albeit sometimes indirectly. But strong-side carry remains not just common, but predominant in most of the shooting public. It remains ubiquitous in most professional (agency) circles as well, where the sight of a someone in plain clothes might very well cause explosive apoplectic diarrhea in certain supervisory or rangemastery circles.

Light Compatible OWB – OG Carry

What’s New is Seldom New – What’s Old is Rarely Obsolete

Strong side OWB in a traditional location might be “old school,” but it works and lots of people use it. In addition to on-duty and uniformed use, strong side OWB remains the carry method of choice for thousands of armed citizens and off-duty armed professionals, and many of them (quite rightfully1) prefer an EDC weapon with a WML aboard. While the Perun holster was good, it was for guns running slick. The Perun LC is designed to meet the WML folks’ need. Right-hand carry, left-hand carry, strong-side or support-side, both-hand-for-dual-wielding-arms-akimbo-drawstroke carry, it can be configured to suit any strong side OWB preference (and will have a mechanism available for IWB conversion shortly).

The Perun LC was designed for the two most common OWB positions (blade of the hip at 3:00 or further back behind the blade of the hip, at either a 0° or 10 cant°). While it probably could be carried AIWB, you’d really have to work at it, and your friends would probably laugh at out you (um, there’s holsters for that you know2).

There are currently no plans to make it into a shoulder holster, however, or an SOB holster, nor is it suitable for use as an ankle rig. Unless your name is Steve Fisher, Zeke Stout, Hodor, or anything ending in Clegane.

The first Perun LC will support the SureFire X300U-B3 light attached to the bigger Glock 9mm frames (G17, G19, and G34), as well as their .40 and .357 cousins. It is also compatible with KKM Precision and similarly comped pistols like the Roland Special, Gila Blaster, Stealth Special, and others. The next incarnations will be for Streamlight-equipped weapons.

The 19X will fit these holsters, as it did the LC’s non-WML compatible predecessor. That’s because, as RCS tells us, the Perun was designed in close cooperation with Glock to achieve proper tolerances with all their new gen pistols. The next brands to be supported will be Smith & Wesson and SIG (not necessarily in that order).

As with any release like this, financial and manufacturing capacity realities dictate what guns get which holsters, and when. If more people carried Raging Judge .454s4 than carried Glocks, Smiths, or SIGs, it would be them what got their holsters first.

Ambi and Injection Molding

Why Crank Them Out This Way?

The Perun LC is ambidextrous in the sense that it, like Pussy Galore and Sterling Archer, will go both ways, but there’s a little work involved. It takes a couple of steps to get there, unless you’re looking to go crossdraw (weird, but who are we to judge?), but it only takes a few minutes to switch the belt tackle around.

There are a couple of good reasons for a manufacturer to make a holster ambidextrous. The first is a simple matter of manufacturing and sales efficiency. It’s easier (and less expensive) to make belt loop tooling than it is a whole ‘nuther batch of separate holster bodies, and easier as well for retailers and government clients. The store doesn’t have to guess how many lefties vs. righties he has to carry on the shelves, and government procurement folks don’t have to worry about the ratio of left to right handed shooters they have to equip.

The second reason involves the afore-mentioned dude who gets his arm chomped off by a shark in a bad mood.5

With a Perun LC, he can switch the holster around to carry his gun on the support side. He’s got enough to worry about, with all those stitches and some fucking shark shitting his Sacred Order of St. Dumas signet rink out there in the water.6 He shouldn’t have to buy another holster.

The same advantage applies to any other injury affecting a shooter’s strong side. As Ser Michael Goerlich, Co-Founder/Owner of Raven Concealment (and hedge knight sworn to House Morningwood) explains,

“We have had numerous instances where customers wanted to borrow, trade, or just buy a new holster because of an injury, often something encountered on duty. A torn rotator cuff surgery is very common in LEOs. Maybe you break your collarbone going over a fence running some asshole down. Injuries like this can keep you out of commission for anywhere from four to fourteen weeks. Do you want to go unarmed that whole time, or do you want to transition to support side carry without having to spend the money on a second holster?”

That’s something I’d never thought of. I’ve been jammed up as a one-hander before (ulnar nerve transposition), but as I maintained use of my dominant hand I never gave it a second thought.

The injection molding process, we’re told, was prompted by a desire for superior manufacturing processes and the ability to use superior materials in a more efficient way. RCS spent the last couple of years bring CAD design and injection mold making capabilities in-house, which give them the ability to produce better, more innovative products than can be created by bending flat sheets of thermoformed polymer. This is why RCS has transitioned all holsters but the Morrigan to the new material, and it’ll be shifted over soon.

There’s nothing wrong with a Boltaron or Kydex holster (those are the Coke/Pepsi comparison of the holster world). Many of us use them daily. I’m wearing a Boltaron holster as I type this. However, the new material RCS is using provides a number of advantages, including a much broader temperature range in which they’ll remain functional. A traditional thermaform sheet polymer holster becomes pliable as you approach 200° or higher, effectively melting the rig. If you leave your Kydex holster in your truck in the desert, you run the risk of fucking it up. That might not be an issue to some of us, but if you’re a someone like a Texas rancher, a Border Patrolman, or a couple of OGA dudes swanning across the Tassalit Cercle7, it could be an issue. Any number of people in places like Alaska or upstate New York could potentially suffer similar issues, just to the other extreme.

When is the last time you sought professional instruction?

In addition to greater strength, RCS advises their material provides much greater resistance to solvents and impact. I haven’t had the chance to test either of those claims, but honestly, I’m not likely to. It might be interesting for someone to do an El Pozolero on a range of holsters from different manufacturers, but my wife gets pissed when I get out my turkey fryer. I can only imagine her reaction if I set up barrels of acid in the garage.

Ambi and Body Shields

Two-Sided, and Intentional

A common misconception about the Perun and Perun LC, as evidenced in comments, concerns and the occasional moronic declamation on social media, arises from the holsters’ body shields. Many folks believe they’re there as part of the ambidextrous configuration. Some bemoan a perceived necessity to modify the holster and remove one shield or the other (or both).

As RCS explains it, this is a complete misapprehension. They tell us dual shields were intentionally part of the design from the beginning, in no small part due to lessons learned from their legacy Phantom series and feedback from end users who wear guns all day every dayin a low profile manner. Those shields would have been there even if they’d built two separate carry models of Perun.

First and foremost they are there to protect the cover garment from wear induced by the weapon (such as that caused by slide serrations). They’re also there to reduce the likelihood of cover garments or other “daily carry FOD” from slipping into the mouth of the holster. This makes reholstering safer. An added advantage is a mitigation of printing, though this will depend on the person, the garment, and the gun.

The decision to include a body shield on each side was in direct response to issues encountered during tens of thousands of drawstrokes and reholsters, by shooters of many backgrounds, with a wide array of body styles and builds, wearing an enormous variety of cover garments, across the gamut of training and real-world conditions.

That doesn’t mean you have to like it. It doesn’t mean you have to keep it. But that’s why it’s there.

It won’t slow your drawstroke, and who cares if it slows you down just a little bit when you reholster? The odds that you’ll need to put it away really fast for some reason are infinitesimal, whereas the odds that your cover garment catches on the weapon as you drag iron are very good. The shields are meant to counter that by minimizing contact between the cover garment (particularly a front-opened jacket). Plus, their presence will help prevent your muzzle from drifting inboard as you put the weapon away. Maybe that’s not something you’re worried about, but for some folks it’s a definite value-add, especially those who have difficulty holstering without focusing on that task.

📷Photo credit Snake Plissken NYPD version.

Note that I’m aware of the common reholstering arguments, and we can debate those another time. I keep eyes on, “looking” the gun in, if I’m able to do so under the circumstances…more often when carrying concealed than if it’s pushed out away from my body by something like a duty rig. As with WMLs and other tactical/practical discussions, we’ll hit that in a follow-on.

Goerlich explains further,

“Slide serrations, rear sights, red-dot sights, extended ambi controls, mag well funnels, extended magazine baseplates, etc. are all potential snag points for a cover garment. The likelihood of any of them snagging can be affected by garment length, garment material, open-front versus closed-front, body type, and how loose or snug the garment is. By utilizing the outer body-shield design, we are able to create an approximately .08″ stand-off for the cover garment from the side of the slide, which often will impact how the garment drapes near the rear-sight area, even though the rear sight is not covered by the body shield.”

There are a lot of interesting questions that will almost certainly come up as the pros and cons of this holster are discussed. Handgun WMLs for everyday use, yes or no? Flashlights and task lights? Appendix or strong side carry? Looking the gun back into the holster. Feel free to weigh in. We’ll be discussing much of this in the coming weeks, here and on social media.

3 This holster will work with the X300-U-A lights, but because of the different in bezels retention will suffer. The overall form factor of a holster like this is dictated the bezel of the light. Thus they do not recommend X-200 series lights.

5 Personally, we think it’s likely this might be some particularly choleric specimen of choleric Carcharhinus leucas (the Bull Shark, like the ones who took off Mike Shutello’s head in Deep Blue Sea 2),but really it could be virtually any species.

7The Tessalit Cercle is a region of Mali, in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains close to Algeria. It’s hot as fuck pretty much all the time, and it’s been taking a beating not just due to the Tuareg Rebellion, but also because of assorted savages like Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Signed-in-Blood Battalion, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, and various other depraved regional assholes. Over 150 UN Peacekeepers from MINUSMA (UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali) have been killed there in the last few years, as well as a number of French soldiers conducting counter-terror missions there. We bring this up only because the Perun, like many RCS products, is in use by a variety of armed professionals in unpleasant OCONUS locations.

8 The Perun was designed so that it will ride just as closely as the Phantom. There are some who, due to the difference in holster body shape, perceive that the Phantom rides closer. From a geometry and design perspective, however, the Perun was designed to pull the gun as close or closer to the body as a Phantom on nearly any physique. The contentious double body shields are from the Eidolon, as is the holster’s overall profile.

9Actually, there really are some Phantoms for sale at Brownells, here (and they’re on clearance).

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A Persian styled blade with a nearly straight spine for thrusting and featuring Emerson’s patented “wave-like feature” it’s akin to having a 38 in your pocket. The Hattin came out as a signature series and quickly became a hit in the cutlery circles.

Why They Kill, the Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist, written by Richard Rhodes is recommended by Dr. William Aprill. It goes deep into the causative factors of violent behavior, and in a much different way than you might think.